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24 Hour Fitness won't let you unsubscribe from marketing spam, so I fixed it

ahmedkaddoura.com

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Re: 24 Hour Fitness won't let you unsubscribe from marketing spam, so I fixed it

#11

Post by daem »

iamacyborg wrote: post #9
daem wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My solution to spam emails is this: https://ahmedkaddoura.com/writing/hide-my-email I create a unique iCloud Hide My Email anytime I need to give out an email. The issue here was I signed up for my 24 Hour Fitness membership in person at the gym where the cell service was bad and I couldn't get the WiFI to work, so I begrudgingly gave the guy my real email. While I could have easily blocked their domain, I took it as…

Don’t they have a list unsubscribe header in the emails themselves? That’s effectively a requirement for senders of their size since Feb 2024.

I see this in the headers. But there was no option in the MacOS Mail client to unsubscribe. Only the Unsubscribe link in the body of the email.

Dkim-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=member.24hourfitness.com; s=twentyfourhour; t=1762443065; bh=KDZeTqKlOBd6YUTrR6K4RMz9MA2BueBl6/LnKG57yqY=; h=From:Date:Subject:To:MIME-Version:Message-ID:List-Unsubscribe: Content-Type; b=Bq6qnq65i1EN6Df9A5TpcCn3AnNzE8yjkNdDYkapehQV727Jrma15ZU4e88I8Ckdk iH5CZrtJPlNqPscm3JWbuP4IavLVKDNf3Prlm4q75tTXE0IyaTPexyOoGTu+4PoAeG wEa8WaN6zfLl5AkPO0U+zjFHicSx3ooyNomFTI2AtSVoVHVPcubtZV8wRPUy4EV9mV pRBroHp1Uj/LCFRyZRScbs5plfxEpmd3wO9vnMsXW6jqOi19kqfOkhTUKpaRVxxJA+ /cMIq+Wh4TSpt6+22gcm4hLsCVNW0mAImjTZZ/yPFwoGpLaoPOia8aYde1mlROOoZi yx81OFO+90kRQ==

Re: 24 Hour Fitness won't let you unsubscribe from marketing spam, so I fixed it

#12

Post by iamacyborg »

daem wrote: post #11
iamacyborg wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t they have a list unsubscribe header in the emails themselves? That’s effectively a requirement for senders of their size since Feb 2024.

I see this in the headers. But there was no option in the MacOS Mail client to unsubscribe. Only the Unsubscribe link in the body of the email. Dkim-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=member.24hourfitness.com; s=twentyfourhour; t=1762443065; bh=KDZeTqKlOBd6YUTrR6K4RMz9MA2BueBl6/LnKG57yqY=; h=From:Date:Subject:To:MIME-Version:Message-ID:List-Unsubscribe: Content-Type; b=Bq6qnq65i1EN6Df9A5TpcCn3AnNzE8yj…

MacOS should have list unsub support from what I can see: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mail/mlhld3405766/mac

Re: 24 Hour Fitness won't let you unsubscribe from marketing spam, so I fixed it

#13

Post by troupo »

> OneTrust is literally a consent management platform focused on regulatory compliance, and 24 Hour Fitness is using it to violate consent regulations.

I mean, OneTrust's entire raison d'etre is to violate consent regulations with flimsy deniability.

Re: 24 Hour Fitness won't let you unsubscribe from marketing spam, so I fixed it

#14

Post by onion2k »

bigDinosaur wrote: post #5
mattlondon wrote: post #2

Sounds like they have not got CORS set up on their servers either? Surely it should not allow mutating requests from random origins not on an allowlist?

CORS has nothing to do with (dis)allowing 'mutating requests from random origins' on the server unless I'm misunderstanding what you mean. The origin is a browser concept.

Not sure why you're being downvoted. CORS is only a browser concept. If you fire off requests from something that isn't a browser (e.g. curl or a python script or whatever) CORS won't do anything. Servers need to validate the origin of requests properly if that's a problem.

Re: 24 Hour Fitness won't let you unsubscribe from marketing spam, so I fixed it

#15

Post by rationalist »

daem wrote: post #6
imiric wrote: post #3

How can you know that it "works"? Any company scummy enough to send spam to begin with, is capable of selling their customer data to a network of scummy companies that will do the same thing. I think most of the "unsubscribe" links are there to fulfill some legal obligation. They don't do what they're supposed to do, and might in fact be making things worse for the person who clicks them. The only solution I've found…

My solution to spam emails is this: https://ahmedkaddoura.com/writing/hide-my-email I create a unique iCloud Hide My Email anytime I need to give out an email. The issue here was I signed up for my 24 Hour Fitness membership in person at the gym where the cell service was bad and I couldn't get the WiFI to work, so I begrudgingly gave the guy my real email. While I could have easily blocked their domain, I took it as…

I use Fastmail which allows me to have a catch-all with my own domain name. I don't need to set anything up to give out a unique email address I make up on the spot. I highly recommend this method.

Re: 24 Hour Fitness won't let you unsubscribe from marketing spam, so I fixed it

#16

Post by rationalist »

If anyone from Shop.app is here, your unsubscribe does not work either (maybe due to VPN usage).

But that's okay, Fastmail now automatically routes it to the spam folder where it belongs.

additionally:

Interesting, I set my email as a backup authentication for a luddite friend's Comcast email account, and I just discovered spam from Xfinity in my spam folder. Shame on you Xfinity Comcast.

The problem:

My understanding is the CAN-SPAM Act violations can only be prosecuted by states Attorney Generals, there is no civil action available.

Re: 24 Hour Fitness won't let you unsubscribe from marketing spam, so I fixed it

#17

Post by left-struck »

imiric wrote: post #3

How can you know that it "works"? Any company scummy enough to send spam to begin with, is capable of selling their customer data to a network of scummy companies that will do the same thing. I think most of the "unsubscribe" links are there to fulfill some legal obligation. They don't do what they're supposed to do, and might in fact be making things worse for the person who clicks them. The only solution I've found…

Nah, unsubscribe links absolutely work. I’m religious about unsubscribing the first time I get any email notification I don’t want from anyone. The result is I basically get no unwanted emails unless I sign of for something new. Compared to basically every other email inbox I’ve ever seen where people don’t unsubscribe… yeah it’s super clear that it works.

I also use email aliases for every single account I have so if my email somehow leaks and I’m getting spam, i know exactly what account leaked it. That’s basically never happened though.

The only problem I have with unsubscribe links is that sometimes the website is straight up broken, like the link is dead or the page unresponsive, and I wonder about how far down fixing that issue is on the engineering team’s todo.

Re: 24 Hour Fitness won't let you unsubscribe from marketing spam, so I fixed it

#18

Post by nojs »

imiric wrote: post #3

How can you know that it "works"? Any company scummy enough to send spam to begin with, is capable of selling their customer data to a network of scummy companies that will do the same thing. I think most of the "unsubscribe" links are there to fulfill some legal obligation. They don't do what they're supposed to do, and might in fact be making things worse for the person who clicks them. The only solution I've found…

it’s generally a poor marketing strategy to ignore explicit requests for list removal, because users manually flag the emails as spam which is catastrophic to your domain rep and will tank deliverability. the incentives are heavily in favour of removing people who unsubscribe

Re: 24 Hour Fitness won't let you unsubscribe from marketing spam, so I fixed it

#19

Post by throw0101c »

daem wrote: post #11
iamacyborg wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t they have a list unsubscribe header in the emails themselves? That’s effectively a requirement for senders of their size since Feb 2024.

I see this in the headers. But there was no option in the MacOS Mail client to unsubscribe. Only the Unsubscribe link in the body of the email. Dkim-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=member.24hourfitness.com; s=twentyfourhour; t=1762443065; bh=KDZeTqKlOBd6YUTrR6K4RMz9MA2BueBl6/LnKG57yqY=; h=From:Date:Subject:To:MIME-Version:Message-ID:List-Unsubscribe: Content-Type; b=Bq6qnq65i1EN6Df9A5TpcCn3AnNzE8yj…

> But there was no option in the MacOS Mail client to unsubscribe.

The functionality for mail clients to offer an "unsubscribe" button is dependent on there being a "List-Unsubscribe" header in the e-mail with a URL:

* https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc8058

* https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc2369#section-3.2

If the sender does not put one in then that's hardly the mail client's fault.

Re: 24 Hour Fitness won't let you unsubscribe from marketing spam, so I fixed it

#20

Post by throw0101c »

iamacyborg wrote: post #12
daem wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this in the headers. But there was no option in the MacOS Mail client to unsubscribe. Only the Unsubscribe link in the body of the email. Dkim-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=member.24hourfitness.com; s=twentyfourhour; t=1762443065; bh=KDZeTqKlOBd6YUTrR6K4RMz9MA2BueBl6/LnKG57yqY=; h=From:Date:Subject:To:MIME-Version:Message-ID:List-Unsubscribe: Content-Type; b=Bq6qnq65i1EN6Df9A5TpcCn3AnNzE8yj…

MacOS should have list unsub support from what I can see: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mail/mlhld3405766/mac

Dependent on the e-mail sender putting a header with a URL in the message:

* https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc8058

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